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Well, that last passage was certainly a long one. We spent 11 days at sea and traveled almost 1,200 miles despite that the rhumb line from Panama to the Galapagos is only about 860 miles. For many of those miles (130 hours worth), we were motoring, and we were almost constantly beating into the wind. Nevertheless, it was pretty pleasant, at least to me. I think we are getting used to this whole sailing thing. The lethargy wore off after a few days after which I felt fully functional in the sense that I could read, write, cook, clean, and sleep without being too bothered by the motion of the boat. Granted, we didn’t see any seriously big waves on this passage, but we did pound into 6′ waves, which would have left half of the crew feeling queasy at best on prior passages. Instead, we all went about our business for the most part, and thanks to the movies provided by our good friend Brian Kopan, no one was tempted to jump overboard out of sheer boredom. (Thanks, Kope!)
We kept the watch system the same as we had on the previous passage: 3 hour shifts during the day, 2 1/2 hour shifts at night. This seems to work very well for us, as we would rotate through the worst shifts (i.e., those in the middle of the night) without feeling like our sleep schedule was too disturbed.
Over the weekend, we had perfect sailing conditions. The sea was glassy, and at last the current was in our favor! It was not uncommon for us to exceed 7 knots under these conditions, and at one point, Dallas saw us reach 8.1 when on a beam reach (sailing perpendicular to the wind). After so many days of rocking and rolling, it amazed us to be moving so quickly yet so smoothly.
Can you believe this sunset?
We had more marine animal sightings as well. One afternoon we all got to see a mama dolphin (presumably) with her baby, who appeared to be attached to her hip as they darted through our wake. I also had a close encounter with a flying fish that flew on board duing one of my middle-of-the-night watches, scaring me to the point that I ran back into the cabin as fast as I could! It then flopped its way onto the cockpit floor, right into my field of vision. I then had no choice but to muster up the courage to go back out and toss it overboard.
Dallas had the best recent sighting, though. As we were approaching the Galapagos, he saw a large (5′ across) manta ray jump out of the water and spin around before finally splashing back into the water. What a sight!
Manta rays put on a great show
But the dolphins may have shown them up!
Booby birds battle it out on the bow
We are hoping to see more of these amazing creatures while we are here in one of the most renowned places in the world for wildlife observation. We just need to find the most economical way to get into the park, as they charge exorbitant fees to take your own boat. In the meantime, Dallas has managed to attack several of the items on the boat maintenance to-do list. Just today, he has already cut off a chafed part from the main halyard and whipped the new end, fished out two broken reef lines from the boom and reran them, and resolved a clogging problem with the electric head.
We only have a few things left to resolve on this stop:
–diving on the prop to remove any remaining fishing line (Wes already dove on it while underway so we´re probably good)
–addressing a problem with the mast not being aligned in the boot (let’s hope this isn’t too serious)
–sewing up the busted trampoline (I think that’s a job for me)
–assessing why the port engine oil pressure alarm goes off when engine is in idle
–repairing the broken hatch frame in Wes and Tiff’s berth (our leaky hatch is holding for now thanks to some duct tape)
This is not an intimidating list compared to what we have dealt with on previous stops. Pura Vida seems to be in pretty good shape considering the beating that she just endured. With any luck, we will manage to shove off from here before we get too comfortable…
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